It doesn’t matter how naturally talented at singing you might be, taking some coaching from a singing teacher will only help you. Singing teachers are vital for serious vocalists for a number of reasons, some of which we have listed and expounded on below for you.
- Protecting your voice
The importance of protecting your voice is probably the number one thing that any vocal teacher will try to instill in you. Singing uses a lot of muscles in your body that people don’t realize, and a common issue stems from folks assuming that the thing they need to be flexing is their throat! This is a natural, but damaging inclination. A good vocal trainer can teach you to become more aware of your body and how it works when you’re singing, and how to avoid straining anything. Other topics to protecting your voice might include things like warming up, diet, hydration, exercise, etc.
- Being able to consistently perform your best
For those of you singers that beat yourselves up over a bad performance, first, ease up on yourselves, but then consider getting some long-term coaching to develop some consistency in your performance. They say that “practice makes perfect,” but a truer statement might be that “good practice makes perfect.” I qualify the practice because you can practice something in a harmful or inconsistent way and instead you get a bad habit. But consistency in performance doesn’t just mean you practice singing scales every day. Singing is all about how you perform, and how you perform has a technical side to it, but I would argue that the greatest singers of all time are all deeply in touch with the emotional aspect of it. Getting to that kind of a mental state time and time again, where you are putting yourself into your song takes practice and help, is difficult. But your vocal teacher can almost fill a therapist-esque role to get you there.
- Qualified third party perspective
We learn early on as musicians that our friends and family are usually not going to be giving us the best constructive criticism. This generalization may not apply to you, your family and friends might be fantastic and objective when it comes to your art, but most times, you’ll be hard pressed to get honest feedback. They’re more likely to say just nice things and be encouraging, which is great and helpful to an extent. But we need honest critique from people that know what they’re talking about. The internet may not be the best place to get this either, mostly because no stranger from the world wide web is really that motivated to give you the kind of feedback that will help you along in the particulars of your voice. If anything, it’s more likely they just find things to nitpick without any thought to further your skills. A skilled teacher can listen and watch your singing in person and give you the right blend of encouragement and critique at a pace that you can handle and succeed!
- Confidence Building
Along the same lines as the above point, having a singing teacher that you respect and trust to build you up can mean the world. Someone in your corner to push you to try new things and to open yourself up more to your performance and singing is invaluable. Many of us musicians and artists deal with self-doubt. “Do I have what it takes?” “Am I good enough?” It’s probably not healthy to become dependent on any other person opinion to find a sense of self-esteem, but having someone outside of your own head to remind you to regard yourself well and be bold with your craft is imperative. That reminder coming from someone who knows you well and knows your craft well is the best scenario.
Thanks for reading, I hope this was helpful. I highly recommend finding a singing teacher/coach to work with if you are serious about improving and lasting as a singer.
Watch this video interview with local singing instructor Darcy DuRuz for some tips on singing in the studio!
